ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book describes multidisciplinary efforts investigating collaboration in dynamic environments, all in support of understanding complex collaborative problem-solving. It illustrates multidisciplinary research blending theory and methods from the cognitive, organizational and information sciences have come a long way in helping us understand teams. The book discusses how these contributions can be developed to support this burgeoning field of macrocognition. It also discusses some of the significant challenges facing multidisciplinary research in macrocognition. It reviews the relationship between shared mental models and team performance. The book discusses the study of self-synchronizing behaviors in teams working without verbal or textual communications. It describes a more dynamic conceptualization of macrocognition by attending to the internalization and externalization of cognitive processes. The book also describes investigations of the cognitive efficiency of mediating, coordinating, and attention focusing artifacts from a more traditional cognitive science perspective.
